Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

Keep Her Safe: A Novel
Keep Her Safe: A Novel
Keep Her Safe: A Novel
Ebook525 pages8 hours

Keep Her Safe: A Novel

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

4.5/5

()

Read preview

About this ebook

Making a Murderer meets Scandal in this story of police corruption, family secrets, and illicit affairs from bestselling author K.A. Tucker, celebrated for her “propulsive plot twists and searing seduction” (USA TODAY).

Noah Marshall has known a privileged and comfortable life thanks to his mother, the highly decorated chief of the Austin Police Department. But all that changes the night she reveals a skeleton that's been rattling in her closet for years, and succumbs to the guilt of destroying an innocent family's life. Reeling with grief, Noah is forced to carry the burden of this shocking secret.

Gracie Richards wasn't born in a trailer park, but after fourteen years of learning how to survive in The Hollow, it's all she knows anymore. At least here people don't care that her dad was a corrupt Austin cop, murdered in a drug deal gone wrong. Here, she and her mother are just another family struggling to survive...until a man who clearly doesn't belong shows up on her doorstep.

Despite their differences, Noah and Gracie are searching for answers to the same questions, and together, they set out to uncover the truth about the Austin Police Department's dark and messy past. But the scandal that emerges is bigger than they bargained for, and goes far higher up than they ever imagined.

Complex, gritty, sexy, and thrilling, Keep Her Safe solidifies K.A. Tucker's reputation as one of today's most talented new voices in romantic suspense.
LanguageEnglish
PublisherAtria Books
Release dateJan 23, 2018
ISBN9781501133428

Read more from K.A. Tucker

Related to Keep Her Safe

Related ebooks

Suspense Romance For You

View More

Related articles

Related categories

Reviews for Keep Her Safe

Rating: 4.444444444444445 out of 5 stars
4.5/5

72 ratings4 reviews

What did you think?

Tap to rate

Review must be at least 10 words

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    It’s such a good read. A little hard to follow sometimes and I found myself flipping back to re read but it’s good nonetheless
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Good, but convoluted plot. Tangled web woven by deceit of many.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Darker than Tucker's other books. This was more if a mystery/crime novel than a romantic story. I actually didn't really like either of the main characters. I feel she spent most of the book working the scenario rather than on the character development.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Didn’t like the heroine. Pricklier than a desert cactus and very hard to like. Why are strong female characters always so bitchy and shrewish when she’s written as an AMERICAN?

    Edit: I had to go back and change the rating to the lowest one because this heroine is written so poorly. I wanted to strangle her the entire time. Ugh. What a dreadful personality.

    1 person found this helpful

Book preview

Keep Her Safe - K.A. Tucker

PROLOGUE

Corporal Jackie Marshall

June 1997

There’s gotta be a pound in each. Abe nudges the ziplock bag of marijuana with the tip of his pen. The kitchen table is shrouded in these bags, along with bundles of cash. I’m going to take a wild guess and say there’s plenty more, hidden around this dive of an apartment.

I peer over at the guy we just busted, handcuffed and lying on his stomach, under another officer’s watchful eye, waiting to be transported for booking. He’s a scrawny nineteen-year-old with a temper. Don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t be beatin’ on my girlfriend if I had all these drugs in my house. His neighbors heard glass smashing and him making threats of death, so they called 9-1-1. He gave us cause to kick in the door when he uttered a string of racial slurs and then spat in Abe’s face. That’s how we found the bloodied blonde girl and this.

Now the paramedics are treating the gashes on her face, while we wait for Narcotics to swoop in.

Abe smooths his ebony-skinned hand over his cheek. What do you think this is worth, anyway?

Depends how good it is. Ten grand? Maybe twenty?

He lets out a low whistle. I’m in the wrong business.

You and me both. We bounced our mortgage payment last month. Blair told me we couldn’t afford that house. I ought to have listened to him. But I also hadn’t planned on getting pregnant when I did. Not that I regret having Noah. I just expected to have earned a few stripes before I was elbow-deep in diapers and formula.

"Don’t worry, you’ll be making the big bucks soon enough, Sergeant Marshall, Abe mocks with a dimpled grin. He’s been calling me that for months, ever since I passed my test and was put on the promotion list. Just don’t go forgetting about us beat cops when you start pinning those stars to your collar."

You’re ridiculous. I roll my eyes at him.

Am I? You are one damn ambitious woman, Jackie, and my money’s on you over half the clowns around here, present company included. He sighs. My days won’t be the same, though.

I’m gonna miss being your partner, Abe. After seven years, there’s no one else I trust more in the APD—and in life—than Abe Wilkes.

He lets out a derisive snort. "Don’t worry, you’ll see me plenty enough. Heck, Noah’ll probably be at my house more than yours."

Dina’s managing alright, what with a baby of her own? Don’t want Noah to be a burden on her.

Abe waves off my concern. "Dina’ll steal that kid away from you if you’re not watching. She insisted."

I can’t be sure if it was Dina or Abe who offered to mind Noah while Blair and I work. I’ve never seen a grown man dote on a little boy as much as Abe dotes on mine. Even Blair doesn’t pay that much attention, and Noah’s his son. That beautiful wife of yours is a blessing. I wish you’d have knocked her up and gotten married years ago. Would have saved me a ton on daycare bills.

Abe struggles to keep that booming chuckle of his at bay—it wouldn’t be appropriate given current surroundings. I’d say we’re movin’ plenty fast, don’t you?

Pregnant three months into dating and married at City Hall the week after finding out? I’d say so. Your mom come around yet? A good Christian woman like Abe’s mother was less than pleased when she found out her twenty-eight-year-old son had knocked up an eighteen-year-old girl. An eighteen-year-old white girl. I’ve met Carmel Wilkes. I don’t believe she has an issue with Dina, per se; she’s more worried about other people taking issue with Dina and Abe together, and the problems that may arise. As progressive as Austin is, there’s still plenty of hate to go around when it comes to the color of a person’s skin.

Abe shrugs. Slowly but surely.

I’ll bet that gorgeous little Gracie is helping.

It’s inevitable, the second anyone says his daughter’s name, that Abe’s face splits open with a wide grin. He’s about to say something—probably tell another story about how cute she is—when our radios crackle with voices.

The cavalry’s here. I pat my stomach. Good thing, too. I’m starving. Let’s get this lowlife booked and then get some food.

Hey . . . Abe lowers his voice to a whisper. I wonder, how honest do you think these narc guys are?

Honest enough. Why?

His chocolate-brown eyes roll over the bundles of cash. Wouldn’t it be easy for one of those to go missing?

It’s a question you don’t pose, especially not while you’re in uniform and standing in front of a pile of drugs. Pretty dang easy, I’ll bet.

CHAPTER 1

Noah

April 2017

Austin, Texas

Hello?

A garbled string of code words over the police scanner carries down the darkened hallway, answering me.

My heart sinks.

She’s still awake.

Kicking my dusty sneakers off, I drag myself all the way to the back of the house. Hey, Mom, I offer as casually as possible, passing her hunched body at the kitchen table, a cigarette smoldering on the edge of a supper plate, a half-finished bottle of cheap whiskey sitting within her easy reach, her gun belt lying haphazardly next to it.

I don’t know why I was hoping for something different tonight. I’ve been coming home to the same scene for weeks now.

Where were y’all at tonight? That Texan twang of hers is always heavier when she’s been drinking.

I yank open the fridge door. It’s Wednesday.

She tilts rather than lifts her head and spies the basketball tucked under my arm. Right. I can’t keep up with you.

I could point out that there’s not much to keep up with. I’m a creature of habit. If I’m not at work, then I’m with my friends, at the gym or doing laps at the pool, or tossing a ball around. I’ve been going to the same pickup courts every Wednesday night since I moved back to Texas to go to UT seven years ago.

I twist the cap off the carton of orange juice and lift it to my mouth instead. Wishing she’d berate me for not using a glass. That’s what she used to do, back when she didn’t beeline for her liquor cabinet the second she walked in the door from work. She’d also remind me not to dribble my ball in the house and to throw my sweat-soaked clothes through the hot cycle of the wash right away, so my room doesn’t smell like a gym locker.

Now she doesn’t even bother to change out of her uniform half the time.

As if to prove a point to myself, I let the ball hit the tile once . . . twice . . . seizing it against my hip after the third bounce, the hollow thud of leather against porcelain hanging in the air.

Waiting.

Hoping.

Nothing. Not a single complaint from her, as she sits there, her eyes half-shuttered, her cropped blonde hair unkempt, her mind preoccupied with something far beyond the oak table’s wood grain that she stares at. She doesn’t give a shit about basic manners anymore. These past few weeks, all she does is sit at the kitchen table and listen to the radio crackle with robbery reports and domestic assault calls and a dozen other nightly occurrences for the Austin Police Department.

Her police department, seeing as she’s the chief. A female chief of police in one of the biggest cities in the United States. A monumental feat. She’s held that position for two years.

And, up until recently, seemed to have held it well.

Coughing against the lingering stench of Marlboros, I slide open the window above the sink. Crisp spring air sails in. I never thought I’d say this, but I miss the smell of lemon Pledge and bleach.

Don’t forget to close it before you go to bed. Don’t wanna get robbed, she mutters.

We’re not gonna get robbed. We live in Clarksville, a historic neighborhood and one of the nicest in a city that’s generally considered to be safe and clean. I can’t blame her for being cautious, though; she’s been a cop for thirty years. She’s seen society’s underbelly. She probably knows things about our neighbors that would make me avert my eyes when passing them on the street. Still, even the worst parts of Austin are a playground next to typical city slums.

I frown as I peer down at the filthy sink. The stainless steel is spattered with black specks. "Did you burn something in here?"

Just . . . trash.

I fish out a scrap of paper with perforations along one side. It looks like a page torn from a notepad. April 16, 2003 is scrawled across it in writing that isn’t my mother’s.

Biggest mistake of my life. She puffs on her cigarette, her words low and slurred. I should have known Betsy wasn’t the only one . . .

Who’s Betsy?

Nobody anymore, she mutters, along with something indiscernible.

I fill a tall glass of water and set it down in front of her, using it as a distraction so I can drag the bottle of whiskey out of her reach.

She makes a play for it anyway, her movements slow and clumsy. Give it on back to me, Noah. Right now, ya hear me?

I shift to the other side of the table, screwing the cap on extra tight, though she could probably still open it. For a woman of her stature—five foot four and 130 pounds—she’s all muscle. At least she was all muscle. Her lithe body has begun to deteriorate thanks to the daily liquid supper. You’ve had enough for tonight.

"What do you know about enough? There ain’t enough whiskey in the world for what I’ve done." She fumbles with the four silver stars pinned to her uniform’s collar, looking ready to rip them off.

So it’s going to be one of those nights. But who am I kidding? Those nights, when she starts in on this incoherent rambling, about not deserving to be chief, are more and more common lately. I miss the days when all she’d complain about was stupid laws and lack of department funding.

I sigh. Come on, I’ll help you upstairs.

No, she growls, a stubborn frown setting across her forehead.

It’s half past eleven. She’s normally passed out by nine, so this is an unusually late night for her. Still, if she downs a few glasses of water and goes to bed, maybe she’ll be ready for work by the morning, only a little worse for wear.

I fold my six-foot-two frame into the chair across from her. Mom?

I’m fine . . . she mumbles, her brow pinched with irritation as she fumbles with her pack of cigarettes.

I wish I could be angry with her. Instead, I’m sad and frustrated. I’m pretty sure I need help, but I have no idea who to turn to. I was eleven the last time she hit the bottle like this. She and Dad were still married, so he dealt with it. But Dad has wiped his hands of her. He’s got a new wife and family and a meat-and-potatoes life in Seattle. He was never meant to be the husband of a cop, and especially not one as ambitious as my mother.

She’d skin me alive if I went to any of the guys I know from the APD about her drinking. There are too many people looking for a reason to get rid of a female chief. This would be a good reason.

I could go to Uncle Silas. He’s the district attorney; he wouldn’t want voters finding out that his sister the chief of police is a drunk. I should have gone to him already, but I hoped it was a phase, something she’d work out on her own.

Maybe with a little push from us, Mom can get sober again. She did it once before, years ago. Quit cold turkey. She’s tough like that. She can beat this again.

If she wants to.

I turn down the volume on the police scanner. Mom?

Her eyes snap open. It takes her a moment to focus on me, but she finally does. How was basketball?

They beat our asses.

Who were you playing with?

Jenson, Craig. The usual crew.

Jenson and Craig . . . she mutters, her gaze trailing over my arms, long and cut from hours of lifting weights and swimming laps. And she smiles. It’s sloppy, but I see the wistfulness behind the boozy mask. "You’ve become so strong and independent, Noah. And smart. So smart. You know I love you to bits, right?"

I nudge the glass of water forward. Take a sip, Mom. Please.

She humors me by downing half the glass, only to then reach for her glass of whiskey and knock back the shot.

What time do you have to be in to work tomorrow? If I can catch her over her morning coffee, when she’s sober and still feeling the pain of tonight, maybe I can start a serious conversation.

Maybe I can get through to her.

You’ve grown into a good, honest man, she mutters, not answering me. You’re going to be fine.

Here. Let me get you another glass of water. I fill up three more, lining them on the table in front of her. Drink. Please.

With reluctance, she reaches for the first.

I’m gonna grab a shower. Without the promise of more booze, she’ll stagger upstairs and be passed out facedown in her uniform by the time I’m out, I’m betting. I dip down to grab the bottle from beneath the chair.

He was a good, honest man, too, she mutters.

You’ll find someone else. You’re still young. She does this when she’s drunk, too—talks about Dad, about how it’s her fault they divorced. Right after this, she’s going to say that she’s a terrible mother, because she abandoned me, let him take me to Seattle all those years ago. A boy needs his father, she believed.

No, not your dad . . . Abe.

I freeze.

I haven’t heard her say that name in years.

I ask cautiously, "Abraham, Abe?"

Hmmm. She nods. Again, that wistful smile touches her lips. You remember him, don’t you?

Of course. He was the tall man with ebony skin and a wide smile who taught me how to dribble a ball. He was my mother’s police partner for years, and one of her best friends for even longer.

Until he was killed by a cocaine dealer, only to be labeled a corrupt cop after his death. I was eleven when he died. I didn’t understand what that meant, only that whatever Abraham Wilkes did was bad. It made statewide news and broadened an already perceptible racial divide within the community. It made Mom start drinking, and I’m pretty sure it broke apart our family.

"He was a good man. Her voice drifts off with her gaze, as her eyes begin to water. He was a good, honest man."

I wander back toward the table. I thought he was stealing and dealing drugs.

She chuckles as she takes another drag of her cigarette. It’s a sad, empty sound. "That’s what everyone thinks, because that’s what they made them think. But you . . . She pokes the air with her finger, her normally neat and trim fingernails chewed to the quick. You need to know the truth. I need you to know that he was a good man and we are bad, bad people."

Who’s bad? I’m desperate to pull the chair out and sit down across from her again, to listen to whatever it is she’s trying to tell me. But I also don’t think she realizes what she’s divulging. And I don’t want to give her pause to clue in and clam up.

She dumps her cigarette pack out on the table, scattering a half dozen cigarettes before finding one to light. You know he broke Dina. Ran her and that beautiful little girl out of town. She was so young when Abe died. Gracie. He always smiled when he said her name. Mom smiles now too, reminiscing. She has her mama’s green eyes and Abraham’s full lips and kinky curls. And her skin, it’s this gorgeous color, like caramel, and—

Mom! I snap, hoping to get her focus back. I vaguely remember Abe’s kid—a cute girl with big eyes and wild hair—but I don’t want to hear about her right now. What are you talking about? Who did what?

"It didn’t start out that way. Or . . . I guess it did. But he made it sound right."

Who? Abe?

Her head shakes back and forth lazily. "I don’t deserve to be chief, but it was one heck of a carrot. Better than the stick. Abe . . . he got the stick. He couldn’t be bought. He was just in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Because of me."

You’re not making sense.

Her jaw sets, and her eyes fix on a point behind my head. What I let happen . . . I may as well have pulled the trigger. She barely has the cigarette lit when she mashes it into the pile of ashes. I sold my soul is what I did, and there ain’t no coming back from that.

What—

’Course I should have known he’d be waiting like a wily fox in the thicket to use it against me.

Who—

"Just remember I meant to do good. And he promised me he didn’t know her age. He promised he’d never do it again. She snorts. I need you to know, Abe was a good man. A tear slips down her cheek, and her gaze locks on mine. I tried to make it right. But I couldn’t face her. After all this time, I couldn’t face what I’d done to her. I’m a coward. Not a chief. A coward."

A shiver runs down my back. Who are you talking about, Mom?

She shakes her head. "She must hate her daddy. She don’t know any better. But I need her to know. Tell Gracie he was a good man. You’ll do that, right?"

I’m speechless, trying to decipher the meaning behind her jumbled words. Mom . . . what are you trying to tell me? It sounds a hell of a lot like a confession. But for what?

She opens her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out as she stares at me, her blue eyes—the same cornflower shade as mine—cast with a haunted shadow. I wait for her to explain herself.

Finally she flicks her lighter, letting the tiny flame dance for a moment before pulling her thumb away to extinguish it. Go on to bed, and let sleeping dogs lie. They’re less likely to bite. She chuckles. He always liked that saying, every time I pushed him, every time I told him they were up to no good.

As if I could sleep after this. Mom . . .

You remember Hal Fulcher?

Your lawyer?

Make sure you pay him a visit. Don’t wait too long. They don’t have much time.

What? Why?

Go and grab that shower. She finishes the first glass of water, then chugs the second. I’m not going to get any coherent answers from her tonight. This conversation will have to continue in the morning, though I can’t imagine how to start it.

I lean down to place a kiss on her forehead, and she reaches up, her palm cupping my stubbled jaw in an affectionate gesture. I love you so much. Always remember that.

Love you, too. And if you’re not in bed by the time I’m done, I’ll throw you over my shoulder. She knows it’s not an idle threat. I’ve done it before.

She responds with hollow laughter, then turns up the dial on the police radio, her eyes beginning to shutter. Another five minutes and she’ll be passed out, right there on the table.

The dispatcher’s voice doesn’t quite muffle her heavy sigh. You’re gonna be fine.


I peel off my clothes and throw them in a corner. I’ll deal with them later. Just like I’ll deal with the scruff covering my jaw. Or not. We’re going to Rainey Street tomorrow night for drinks and Jenson’s girlfriend is bringing her friend Dana, the one I hooked up with last week. I forgot to shave then, too, and she seemed to like it.

I simply stand under the hot stream of water for a moment, letting it rivulet over my skin, hoping it’ll melt away the unease that’s settled onto my shoulders. Mom was acting different tonight. Almost . . . crazy. The fact that she brought up Abe has thrown me for a loop. She took his death hard. That’s when she started really drinking the first time.

And what the hell was all that talk of carrots and sticks and selling her soul?

I inhale the spicy scent of my shampoo as I scrub away at my scalp. Fucking dramatic drunken rambling. I can’t imagine what my mother thinks she’s guilty of. She’s a highly decorated police chief. She’s well respected in the community. She’s smart and funny. When she’s not drunk.

She’s my mom.

The blast of a gunshot tears through the house.

CHAPTER 2

Noah

My uncle Silas walks with a limp.

I was five when I first recognized that he didn’t walk like everyone else, when I mentioned his funny gait. He pulled me onto his knee and asked me if I knew what a ninja was. I laughed at him and held up my Raphael Ninja Turtle figurine. That’s when he told me how he once fought a real ninja. He said he won, but in its last moments, the ninja gouged his leg with a blade. He rolled up his pant leg and showed me the five-inch scar to prove it.

Every time we visited, I would ask him to tell me the story again and he would, each version more detailed and far-fetched than the last. He told it so convincingly that I believed him, consuming every grand detail with a stupid grin on my face.

I got older. Soon, I was too big to be pulled onto his lap and too wise to buy into the tall tale. I’d still ask, though, with the smart-ass tone and that doubtful gaze of a boy growing into adolescence. But he’d hold fast to his story of the ninja’s blade, capping it off with a wink.

I was nine when my mom finally told me the truth—that twelve-year-old Silas fell out of a tree while saving her from falling, and suffered a bad break that never set properly. My grandmother refused to let the doctors rebreak the bone, leaving her son with a mild limp.

Even though I had already figured out that the ninja story wasn’t real, I remember feeling completely disenchanted. I guess that tiny flame of childhood hope for the impossible had still been burning, buried somewhere deep.

Now, I watch the silhouette of a man with a limp approach the front porch where I sit, his face obscured by the night and countless flashing lights that fill our cul-de-sac, and all I want is for him to tell me another story.

One where my mother is still alive.

Silas is fifty-seven and anything but an old man, yet he climbs the steps like one, his movements slow and wooden, his shoulders hunched, his hand on the wrought-iron rail to support him to the landing. I’m guessing he’s stuck in the same surreal fog as I am.

He sounds out of breath by the time he reaches the landing. I had my phone on silent. And Judy must have turned off the ringer to the house line while she was dusting today.

It’s okay. I tried calling his numbers three times each before the cops dispatched a car to his place.

He hovers near the front door.

They might not let you inside, I warn him, my voice hollow. He’s the district attorney for Travis County, but he’s also the deceased’s brother. What is the protocol in situations like this?

"I don’t want to go inside." He fumbles absently with a set of keys inside his cardigan pocket. All he has on underneath is a white V-neck T-shirt, the kind you wear as an undershirt. The kind you pick out of the hamper at one in the morning, when the police have woken you to tell you that your little sister shot herself in the head.

I can’t remember the last time I saw Silas looking so disheveled, but I’m not one to comment. Up until an hour ago I was wearing nothing but a blood-soaked towel hastily wrapped around my hips. My hair is still coated with shampoo suds.

Taking a deep breath, he mutters, Give me a minute. And he disappears inside, leaving me to stare out at the chaos. They must have every available officer on site, the dead-end street filled with cruisers. Our neighbors are standing on their porches in various states of dress, watching quietly. At least we live in a secluded area, where there are only six houses’ worth of people to witness this. The police barrier around the corner keeps the gawkers at a safe distance. Apparently there’s a crowd over there.

Silas emerges two minutes later. Or maybe twenty minutes. His face is drawn and pale. He eases into the porch swing next to me, pausing for a moment to take in the dried blood covering my hands. I knew I shouldn’t touch her, even as my fingers reached for her neck and her wrist, searching in vain for a pulse. What the hell happened, Noah?

All I can do is shake my head. The cops told me to stay put and not make calls or otherwise talk to anyone, but no one’s stopping Silas from being here, so I guess he doesn’t count.

Noah . . . he pushes.

The kitchen window was open. Someone could have climbed in.

Perhaps. I can tell Silas is saying that to appease me.

As fast as I flew down those stairs, no one would have had time to climb back out the window and reset the screen without my notice. Plus, why not use the door? But the doors were locked, and the alarm was set.

Walk me through it.

You’re gonna be fine.

Those were her last words to me. Jesus . . . Those were her last words and I left her there.

Silas rests his hand on my knee, pulling me back from my guilt-laden thoughts.

I tell him what I told the emergency dispatcher and the cops—that I was upstairs for no more than twenty minutes. That I was in the shower when I heard the gunshot and I came down to find her facedown in a pool of blood at the kitchen table, the gun gripped in her hand.

And before that?

Before that . . . She was into the whiskey.

Just tonight?

I hesitate, and then shake my head.

He takes a deep breath. How long?

A few weeks. I lower my voice. She was saying all kinds of crazy shit tonight, Silas.

Oh? He leans back, shifting closer to me. Like what?

Like how she didn’t deserve her job, and didn’t earn it.

He pauses to consider that. Too many bullheaded bastards telling her a woman doesn’t belong as chief. Maybe it got to her head finally.

I don’t think that’s it. I lower my voice even further, to a whisper. She was talkin’ about Abe tonight. She made it sound like he was set up. And like she was involved.

She said that? Those exact words?

Not exactly, but—

She had nothing to do with that mess. He shakes his head decisively. Nothing.

"She seems to think otherwise. Seemed to," I correct myself, softly.

"Believe me when I say this, Noah: that investigation was the most thorough I’ve seen. There were no two ways about it, that man was guilty. His eyes search mine. Did she tell you why she thought otherwise?"

She didn’t give any details. But the way she was talking, she made it sound like she had a hand in it.

Good Lord, Jackie, he mutters. His eyes rove over the crowd and the officers coming in and out. A few of them I recognize, but most I don’t. Did you tell APD any of that?

Not yet.

Maybe I can convince them to wait until tomorrow for your statement.

They said they needed it tonight. At least a preliminary one.

Silas makes a sound of agreement. "Can’t blame them. She was the chief. He drums his fingers against his knee. They need to hurry it up, though."

I’m sure they’ll take it as soon as they can. Mom’s body is still cooling inside.

Did she say anything else to you?

I don’t . . . I try hard to focus on our conversation but it’s tough, in this fog. Something about how it started off as being the right thing. And a wily fox, using something against her. Do you think she was being blackmailed?

She never told me. I’d think she would, don’t you?

I shrug. Because who knows what my mother would do, given what she just did.

Silas pauses. Okay, here’s what you’re going to do. He leans in close to me, and I sense a plan coming into focus. That’s Silas—you give him your problem, and he’ll be formulating a solution within minutes. They don’t need to know what all was said, he mumbles, almost too low for even me to hear. That’s between you two. Your mom was a great cop and chief, and we don’t need to give anyone ammunition to say otherwise. This is already going to be a hard pill to swallow for the city.

But what am I supposed to tell the police? I can’t lie, Silas.

Did she ask you about your day?

Yeah.

Tell them about that. You came home, talked for bit, and went upstairs. She was having a few drinks, but you didn’t think anything of it. That’s all true, right?

Right. Had the thought that she’d shoot herself crossed my mind, I would never have left her side.

Then that’s all you tell them. Whatever your mother was saying about Abe . . . she was drunk. She rambles when she’s drunk. I’m sure it’s not what it sounded like. It wouldn’t be right to bring it up, not when she can’t defend herself.

This isn’t just my uncle telling me this. I’m getting the district attorney’s seal of approval to keep my mother’s crazy words to myself. Right or not, it’s what I need to hear. I nod, and a flicker of relief sparks deep within this overwhelming void gripping me.

Silas and I fall into silence then, watching the parade of people stroll in and out with barely a glance in our direction.

. . . I don’t know. When would be good? Boyd steps out of the house, his radio in hand. I’ve known him since preschool and, while we’ve never been best friends, twenty-one years has earned us the right to call each other up at any time. Like the time he called me to ask if my mom would write him a letter of recommendation, when he was applying to the APD.

He was one of the first responders tonight.

The porch floor creaks under the weight of another man, following closely behind him. He’s in plain clothes, but he must be a cop; otherwise they wouldn’t have let him inside. How ’bout next Wednesday, after our game?

Shit, does the season start next week? I’ll have to see if I can make—

"Officer, are you investigating your chief’s death or planning out your social calendar? Tell Towle that District Attorney Silas Reid wants to get his nephew out of here immediately," Silas interrupts in a loud, annoyed voice.

Boyd turns to look at me with a grim expression. No cop with half a brain would want to get on the DA’s bad side, and Boyd’s no idiot. Yes, sir. We’re waiting for . . . My attention drifts from whatever excuse he’s giving Silas to the other guy, whose dark gaze has settled on me. His expression is blank and yet menacing. It could just be his deep-set eyes and steep forehead, the steepest I’ve ever seen. The combination makes him look like a mean son of a bitch.

Noah?

Silas’s voice snaps me out of my daze. Boyd is standing in front of me, his notepad and pen out, sympathy on his face. He’ll take your preliminary statement and then we can deal with the rest tomorrow. Silas gives me a reassuring smile. Are you ready?

Am I ready to tell half-truths? Yes, sir.

Of course Mom wouldn’t have had anything to do with Abe’s death.

And no one needs to know she said otherwise.

CHAPTER 3

Grace

Tucson, Arizona

I toss a baby carrot to the sandy ground. Don’t say I never shared.

Cyclops dives and devours it in one fell swoop, unbothered by the gritty coating. I’m not surprised. He’ll eat anything he can fit into his yappy mouth. I’ve caught him trotting by with a rat tail dangling from his jaws more than once.

Now go on. It’s pointless; the mangy dog can smell the chicken taquitos I tucked away in my purse. He won’t be leaving my heels anytime soon. Persistence is how he’s survived this long. He doesn’t have an owner to feed him; he follows the trailer park’s inhabitants, hoping someone will pity him enough to throw him scraps. Usually that someone is me.

I remember the day he showed up, limping from an infected cut on his hind paw, a chunk of his ear freshly torn out, long since missing his left eye. I had one hell of a time holding him down to clean and wrap that foot of his. That was three years ago, and he keeps coming back.

Like many of the people who find their way to the Hollow.

I stroll along the laneway, ignoring him. It’s two in the afternoon and Sleepy Hollow Trailer Park is practically a ghost town, as usual. Most everyone’s either sleeping off their midnight shift or out working a long day for shitty pay, so they can come back to this.

I pass the Cortezes’. There are six people living in that trailer. It has a sheet of plywood covering a window because Mr. Cortez smashed it with his fist in a fit of rage last month and he doesn’t have the money to replace it yet. Management won’t say anything. Five hundred a month in rent doesn’t buy you much around here, besides a roof that leaks during monsoon season. The park runs out of water at least three times a week, and the smell of sewage lingers in the air more days than not.

It looks like nobody’s home there, and I say a quick prayer of thanks for that because if the Cortezes are home, then no one’s getting any sleep. I was up at five for my shift at QuikTrip and I’m desperate for a nap before I have to bust my ass serving tables at Aunt Chilada’s tonight.

Next to the Cortez family is the Sims trailer, where Kendrick Sims, his sister, her boyfriend, and their seven-year-old son live. While his sister and boyfriend work honest jobs, Kendrick has been in and out of prison more times than I can count. Currently he spends his days hanging around their yard, shaking a lot of hands, and disappearing around corners. Everyone knows he’s dealing drugs.

He lingers by the chain-link fence now, leering at me. But he won’t come sniffing around here. He tried eight years ago, when he waylaid me along the lane one night and started telling me how I should date him because he’s black and my daddy must have been black for me to look the way I do, and that he would teach me all that I need to know about my heritage. He was nineteen.

I was twelve.

No one has ever accused me of having a dull tongue. As scared shitless as I was, I let him have it before running home and digging out my mom’s switchblade from beneath her mattress. I carry it in my purse to this day.

Next to the Simses is the Alves family. Vilma Alves waves from her spot in the crimson velvet armchair that sits outside her front door. It’s her throne; no one dares touch it. Her son brought it home years ago, a treasure from the curbside. It’s remained in that exact place, rain or shine. Mostly shine in Tucson.

"iBuenas tardes!" she calls out in her reedy voice.

"Hola." I offer her a smile as I always do, because she’s ninety years old and she’s dropped off homemade enchiladas and mole at our door on many occasions, when she knew things were especially rough for me.

She scowls at Cyclops, shooing him away with a wave of her hand and a hiss of, "iRabia!"

I peer down at the scrappy mutt—part terrier, part Chihuahua, all parts annoying—and smirk. He’s not foaming at the mouth yet.

She shrugs reluctantly. I’m not sure which is worse—my Spanish or her English. We always muddle past the language barrier, though.

"Hasta luego." With a lazy wave, I make to move on.

"Un hombre visitó a tu mamá."

While my Spanish might be terrible, I know what that means. Or, more importantly, I know what it means when a man visits my mother while I’m at work.

My stomach tightens. How long ago? Time? I tap my watchless wrist.

"A las diez."

Ten. Four hours ago.

I gaze out over the rectangular box ahead, the two-bedroom 1960s mobile unit that served as a childhood home to my mother and was left to Mom when my gran passed a few years back. I shouldn’t be surprised. I’m long past buying my mother’s empty promises and then screaming at her with anger and fear every time she breaks them. That was the teenaged, hopeful version of me.

The stupid one.

Nodding solemnly at Vilma for her warning, I offer a soft "gracias." I struggle between rushing and prolonging these last twenty steps to my front door, knowing that one of these days I’m going to open it and find a corpse waiting inside. I haven’t figured out if this twisted knot in my gut is because I’m dreading or have already accepted that outcome.

Probably both.

Cyclops’s ear-piercing bark distracts me momentarily. He knows it’s his last chance and he’s peering up at me with that one soulful eye.

Rich foods aren’t good for you. I toss another carrot his way. He gobbles it up and then scampers off under the Alves trailer after Mrs. Hubbard’s tabby cat.

You’re welcome, I grumble, stealing a carrot for myself, though my appetite has all but disappeared. I stare at our mangled front door for a moment, mentally itemizing all of its various cuts and bruises—a size-twelve boot dent where Mr. Cortez tried

Enjoying the preview?
Page 1 of 1